Fun with HID

Introducing Human Interface Devices

There are many different types of widget, device, and thingummajigs. Describing them is sometimes more art than science. Computer scientists use the term Human Interface Device (HID) to describe devices that allow humans to interact with or control computers.

HIDs come in many shapes and sizes. Some have buttons like keyboards and mice. Others, like game controllers use vibrating motors to tell humans that they’ve been shot in a game. Some HIDs don’t interact with humans, like anti-piracy dongles. Others, like insulin pumps rely on human interaction to keep people alive.

The HID part of the name HIDIOT stands for Human Interface Device because it can simulate most HID. The IOT part stands for Input/Output Toolkit because it was designed to impersonate and manipulate HID devices.

The HIDIOT can impersonate HIDs like keyboards, mice, and gamepads. By doing so, it can trick a computer into thinking it’s interacting with a human being. This allows us to automate things that would be done by a human.

In this tutorial, you’ll:

Discover how emulation and automation can make hard or boring work into easy and fun work

Make your HIDIOT pretend to be a keyboard

Create a programmers passport using an automated keyboard program

Draw some mathematical pictures by making the HIDIOT pretend to be a mouse

Work smarter, not harder

We’ll start by learning how the HIDIOT can write characters in Notepad by making an automated keyboard using the DigiKeyboard library.

Showing off your credentials

Using our automated keyboard, we can create a programmer passport so you can show off your credentials to your friends and family. You’ll be able to plug your HIDIOT in and print the passport you created on screen without any input from you at all!